The God of Second Chances | Sunday Message

Hey there. Thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you.

If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org. Let's pray together. Father, we are here to sing of the goodness of God and to learn more about it because your Word tells us it's the goodness of God that brings us to repentance. And as we look now at how you can give second chances, I pray for anyone that has joined us in person or is watching. Wherever they are, may they find that second chance in life if they need it because you are the God of second chances. So we commit this time of Bible study to you now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You can all be seated. Good afternoon, everybody.

Hello to Harvest Riverside, Harvest Kumulani, all of you watching at Harvest at Home, and of course you guys right here at Harvest Orange County. Let's turn in our Bibles to two passages, 2 Samuel 11 and Psalm 32. 2 Samuel 11 and Psalm 32. Next Sunday we wrap up our series on the Psalms of David, and then we're going to start a special four-week series on the end times leading into the Crusade. So much is going on in the world right now that is relevant to what the Bible says will be happening prior to the return of Jesus Christ.

And I think it is a great time for us to look at what the Bible has to say. So that is not next Sunday, which by the way is Father's Day. So dads look forward to seeing you here.

Now don't take Sunday off, dads. Come on. We look forward to seeing you in church. We will have a great time wrapping up this Psalms of David series and then off to this end time series.

Then on to the Harvest Crusade. The title of my message is The God of Second Chances. Okay, question. How many of you have messed up horribly in life? Raise your hand. Wow, what a bunch of losers.

Who are you people? No, my hand goes up too. We've all messed up in some way, shape, or form horribly in our lives. And there have been times where some of us have sunk so low we thought we couldn't go any lower, but somehow we did. Or you sinned so badly you thought there was just no hope for you.

Well, if so, I have good news for you. Our God gives second chances, and third chances, and fourth chances, and fifth chances, and pretty much as high as you can count. And this is beautifully illustrated in this story before us from the life of David because here we are looking now at a man who desperately needed forgiveness. When you think of David usually, two other names come to mind. You think of David and Goliath and David and that's it. So one was his greatest victory with Goliath, a nine foot six inch Philistine that he killed in the Elah Valley. And then Bathsheba, and that's the story we're going to look at now.

One was his greatest triumph, the other was his worst defeat. So David, God hand picks him to become a major biblical figure. As I pointed out to you, 66 chapters of the Bible are dedicated to the life of this man. So clearly the Lord wants us to know about him. He has so much to say to us.

He has so much to show us, both positive and negative, what to do and what not to do. So of course David is chosen by God. Well he was replacing King Saul who had disobeyed the Lord and once Saul realized that David was going to take his throne, he made it the mission of his life to stop this from happening. He did everything within his power to kill David.

But of course he failed and ultimately Saul along with his courageous son Jonathan died on the battlefield. And David ascends now to the throne and one of the things that he does, which is so amazing, which we looked at recently, is he sought out any relatives of King Saul so he could show grace to them. And he became aware of Saul's grandson Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, and David brought Mephibosheth into his home and treated him like a member of the royal family. So David really was living up to this title, the man after God's own heart. The people loved David as their king. And David revealed one of his secrets in Psalm 57 when he said, my heart is fixed, my heart is fixed, oh Lord. He had this determination to stay close to God, to honor God, and everything was going along beautifully.

Then he got sloppy. It started with a lustful look and it ended up as a nationwide scandal. And though the sin he committed took only minutes, the repercussions of it lasted for the rest of his life. No sin in the Bible got more press or attention except Adam and Eve in the garden than this one.

Everyone heard about it. In fact, the prophet Nathan said, because of this sin, you've given the enemies of God an opportunity to blaspheme God. But yet, despite how sordid this story is, as we'll see in a few moments, he still was a man after God's own heart. That's not to justify what David did.

Far from it. What he did was wrong and he paid the price for it, but he also turned back to God. But his story stands as a warning to us all, where the Bible says that him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

So let's read about it. We're looking at 2 Samuel chapter 11. I read verses 1 through 5 from the New Living Translation.

Read along with me if you would. The following spring, the time of the year when kings go to war, David sent Joab, that would be his general, and the Israelite army to destroy the Ammonites. And in the process, they laid siege to the city of Raabah. But David stayed behind in Jerusalem. Late one afternoon, David got out of bed.

Late one afternoon, sleeping in. After taking a nap and went for a stroll on the roof of the palace, and he looked out over the city and he noticed a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath. He sent someone to find out who she was and he was told, she's Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliim, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Then David sent for her, and when she came to the palace, he slept with her. Then she returned home, and when David discovered that she was pregnant, excuse me, when Bathsheba discovered she was pregnant, she sent a message to inform David. We'll stop here. So David was around 50 years old at this point, and it all started with a red Ferrari chariot he was riding around in.

No, I'm kidding. But David was having what some people might call a midlife crisis, which to me is kind of an excuse for just maybe some bad decisions a person could make in life. But he had been on a roll up to this point. He had distinguished himself in so many ways as a man of God, a skilled musician, a gifted poet, writing beautiful psalms of praise to God, a seasoned ruler, and also a courageous warrior.

He was on an absolute roll and he lowered his guard. And this is often what can happen to us is we lower our guard because we think we're doing so well spiritually. So I want to give you 10 principles about how we fall into sin and how we can also recover. Here's principle number one if you're taking notes, and you should be, or do you memorize all this stuff? If so, I'm very impressed by your memory.

I find that when I write something down it really helps me to remember it. But number one, David's fall came after a great spiritual success. David's fall came after a great spiritual success.

A case in point, when Jesus was beginning his public ministry, he went down to the Jordan River and he was baptized by his cousin John. The Holy Spirit came upon him in the form of a dove and God said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Pretty epic moment. We could definitely call that a blessed moment.

And what happens after that? Immediately the Bible says Jesus went into the wilderness to be tested by the devil for 40 days and 40 nights. So after the dove came the devil.

After the blessing came the attack. That's often what happens in our lives. The devil sizes us up and he looks for our vulnerabilities.

And everybody has a weakness or weaknesses. And so the devil's sizing up David. And David was setting himself up for this.

Bringing me to point number two. The sins we commit today may come back to haunt us tomorrow. Again the sins we commit today may come back to haunt us tomorrow.

Here's the thing. David didn't just fall into this sin. He had been setting the stage for it. 2 Samuel 5 tells us that in direct disobedience to God, David took concubines after he became king. And in Deuteronomy 17 it says a king should never do this. He should never have multiplied wives or his heart will turn away from God. And that's exactly what was happening to David. His heart was turning away from God.

Slowly but surely. This is a man who was allowing lust to consume his life. Now he might have justified it and said well I have a strong sexual drive and if I have all these women that will satisfy me. But his drive only increased because it was not a God given sexual drive. Look God places in you a sexual drive. There's nothing wrong with sex. You wouldn't be here if there wasn't sex. God invented sex. Sex is not merely for reproduction though it does include that.

Sex can be for pleasure, fulfillment and expressing that sense of oneness when a man and a woman come together. But there's only one place where God will actually bless sex and yes he can and will do that. And the only place where he will bless it is in a marriage relationship where the husband and wife are loving each other. He'll never bless premarital sex or extramarital sex or homosexual sex or any other variation and there's many variations these days.

It's a man and a woman in marriage in a monogamous faithful relationship. But David was not doing that. He was way outside of these boundaries. And he was basically setting the scene for this problem that was about to happen.

The Bible says can you take fire in your lap and not get burned? When I was a little kid I used to love to set army men on fire. We used to buy these little packages of army men. They were all green.

Do any of you remember this? And they would be in various positions. There was a guy holding the rifle and there was another guy with binoculars.

A little binoculars guy. So the various army men. So I would set them on fire and I like to start with the guy holding the rifle because I would light the edge of his rifle and he would be there and he would slowly melt into a little green puddle.

I thought that was cool. So I was burning my army men on newspaper. That was my first problem. And suddenly he melts into a little green puddle that has flames coming off and the whole paper is on fire. Now I have a paper filled with burning plastic and I run over and I throw it into a trash can made out of bamboo and the trash can gets on fire.

Ok so a problem is developing. Thankfully I was able to put the fire out but here is my point. Little fires can turn into big fires really quickly. And the same is true of lust. You know what David was doing is the way he was living he was feeding his lust. It was sort of like pouring gasoline on a fire. It is not going to extinguish it. It is going to multiply it. So it was getting worse and worse.

And there are ways we can do this. Obviously looking at pornography. Looking at things that will stimulate this sort of thing. So he is living really in a moral lifestyle before he even lays his eyes on Bathsheba. So while his army was at war David was taking a nap. David was basically sleeping when he should have been fighting. By the way there is nothing wrong with sleeping. There is nothing wrong with taking a nap. I like to take naps.

But here is the thing. You can go into a spiritual sleep. Romans 13 says, It is later than it has ever been. Our salvation is nearer than it has ever been.

The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us therefore wake up from our sleep and cast off the works of darkness and be Christ's men from head to foot and give no chances for the flesh to have its fling.

That is a Phillips translation of Romans 13. And we can be asleep spiritually. And that is exactly what David was doing. He was idle when he should have been leading his troops into battle. It is good to take some time for rest. Even Jesus said to his own disciples, Come apart by yourselves to a deserted place and rest for a while.

For many were coming and going and they didn't even have time to eat. He said come apart. If you don't come apart and rest you might come apart spiritually. It is okay to take a day off. It is a good thing even.

It is okay and a good thing to take a vacation and spend time with family and friends and recharge. Nothing wrong with that whatsoever. But that is not what David was doing. He was idle. His armor was off in more ways than one. Bringing me to point number four. Our greatest battles don't necessarily come when we are working hard. He was bored. He had too much time in his hands.

Alan Redpath the great British preacher and a wonderful guy said, Times of leisure are to be more dreaded than those of the most strenuous toil. So here he is in his rooftop palace. Now I have had the opportunity to go to Israel many times and they have what they call the city of David. So they are in Jerusalem. They have the ancient Jerusalem or where David would have ruled from when he was king. And so we went to the area where his palace would have been. And on top of the palace they would effectively have a rooftop patio.

And his patio was elevated above the rest of the city so he would have a great view of everything going on. So you know he is sleeping in. Gets out of bed. Plays a couple of video games.

Wandering around on his balcony and he is wiping the sleep from his eyes. And he looks out and sees the beautiful Bathsheba bathing herself. Now the Bible actually tells us she was a woman of unusual beauty. And the Bible doesn't exaggerate. So the Bible says she was a woman of unusual beauty.

Whoops. What can I say? What can I say?

Am I turning red? So a woman of unusual beauty. She was attractive.

It is interesting in the original Hebrew the word to describe beauty is foxedo. I made that up. It isn't really. Really?

Is that true? She was a gorgeous girl. She was a fox. She was a babe.

Whatever word you want to use. She was really attractive. Okay so it was what it was. That would have been a temptation for any man to see a woman of her exceptional beauty bathing herself.

But for David man it was just like a fire to dead leaves. He was already going down this path. And look you can't stop being exposed to some things. Now you can maybe keep yourself from certain things in life.

Absolutely. But on the other hand sometimes there are images that come into our view that we didn't choose to view. It could be on a billboard. It could be on a television screen.

It could be when you're scrolling on your phone. Whoa there it is. But you choose what you will do in response to that. You decide what happens next. So if temptation comes knocking at your door you don't have to answer the door. And you certainly don't have to invite it in for coffee.

Leave the temptation outside. But the problem is we let it in. We take the test drive so to speak.

We try the free sample. And we'll say all along well I would never do this but certainly I can find out what it's all about. And David did that and more. And he misuses his office as king and gives an order. Go get that woman and bring her up to my palace. 2 Samuel 11 3 a servant who I have to really admire for his boldness. He says to the king she's Bathsheba the daughter of Eliim the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

You know kudos to this guy. David she's married off limits you should know this. Well David could care less bringing me to point number five. When deluded by sin we don't think clearly because sin makes us stupid. Sin makes us stupid. You understand what I'm saying we don't think rationally when we're under the influence of sin.

Yeah whatever David thought bring her up here I said. And so now they have this relationship this sexual encounter. And now this whole thing is in process. Now people justify things like this. They say well you know I'm not happy in my marriage. Or I work really hard and I deserve this. Or everyone else is doing it why shouldn't I? I love this one I'm human like everyone else and we all make mistakes.

You know what nobody falls into adultery. It's a series of steps one must take. And God was putting roadblocks up in the life of David because he loved him because he's his child. Roadblock number one she's married stop stop now. You know maybe you've tried to go down a road that you should not go down. And the Lord put a roadblock up something to stop you something to arrest your attention. That's what was happening to David. And he just keeps going.

And then they were together that night. And now the repercussions are going to come as a result. But instead of confessing his sin David tried to hide his sin. The Bible says your sin will find you out. Okay so Bathsheba sends word back to David I'm pregnant.

Okay so roadblock two man oh stop. Stop repent but David starts plotting on how to cover up his sin. Now let me just say this what David did after this was so awful because it resulted in the death of an innocent man.

And that would be the husband of the husband rather of Bathsheba Uriah the Hittite. And you know sometimes women young women find themselves pregnant. As a result of a relationship or some encounter with a guy. And then often what happens tragically is they get an abortion. And let me just say this if I'm talking to a woman right now that finds herself pregnant. Absolutely don't add to your immoral sin the sin of taking the life of an innocent child. That child deserves to live okay. They're loved by God.

He has a plan for their life. And by the way I was the result of a one night stand. I've told you this before. I thought a certain man was my biological father because his name was on my birth certificate. I found out like 35 years later he wasn't my dad. And my mom finally admitted she had a fling with some guy she met in Long Beach and voila here I am. Now my mom was not a great mother. But I thank God she brought me into this world and let me live. And so this is how I feel. The child is innocent. Well I can't afford to have a child.

Well I think you might be able to adapt to it more easily than you realize. But let me say this. There's many Christian families just looking for a child to adopt right now. Let the child live for sure. You might say well Greg I know there's different ways we look at it. Well you can look at it any way you want. There's only one way the Bible looks at it. Life begins at conception. And there's only one position for the Bible believing Christian and that is the pro-life position. There are no others.

It's very important. Well I don't agree. Then you're wrong. Because you're disagreeing with the Bible. But Bathsheba sends word now to David. Okay so what David should have done was repented. Lord I've sinned. I'm sorry but now he comes up with this idea.

Okay let's see. Okay what's her husband's name again? Uriah. Where is he? He's serving you in your army. He's out fighting for you right now.

Oh interesting. Okay well hey tell him to come to the palace. So here's Uriah. He doesn't know David.

He's just a soldier in the king's army. And he gets a message. David the king wants to see you in the palace immediately. What must he have thought?

What? He wants to see me? The man after God's own heart? The sweet psalmist of Israel? The giant killer David wants to see me? Yes he wants to see you in his palace.

So Uriah appears before the king. King has a little small talk with him. How's it going? What's up? Okay now hey man. You've been out there fighting for our kingdom. Appreciate that. Why don't you go home and have a nice evening with your wife?

Nod nod wink wink. Well Uriah thought I can't do that while all of my fellow soldiers are out there risking their lives. So he literally slept outside of his house that night. See David's idea was if Uriah slept with his wife then he would think that that was his child. And so David hears about this and this time he gets Uriah drunk.

Sends him home. Again Uriah will not sleep with his wife so David comes up with this idea. I'm gonna have Uriah killed and then I'll marry his wife. So he sends a letter to Joab and has Uriah deliver it to him. Here's Uriah walking around with this death sentence and a sealed message from the king. He gives it to Joab. Dear Joab, I need Uriah to die. He didn't say it that plainly but in so many words. So get him in the battle there. Have the other guys back off and this is what I need to happen.

I need him to be gone. Signed David, the man after God's own heart is. That's exactly what happened. So a message came back to David from Joab.

Oh yeah, we had this military encounter and a number of soldiers died including Uriah the Hittite. Ah, pulled it off. And he married Bathsheba.

Awesome. Covered up his sin. But here's the problem. The Bible says what he did displeased the Lord.

And here's the thing. Your sin will find you out. That happened to Moses. He killed an Egyptian and buried him in the sand. And if you're gonna kill someone, never bury them in sand. Well first of all, don't kill anyone. Don't kill anyone. But if you do.

No, not really but. So Moses left him out and the sand shifted and there the evidence of his crime was exposed and now David's sin is going to be exposed as well. And why did the Lord want to confront David?

Because God loved David and he could not let this happen as it happened. Now, Psalm 32 is what I want you to look at next. It's something he wrote after he confessed his sin to God. He also wrote Psalm 51.

Psalm 32 describes the futility and misery of sin when it's unconfessed. I mean this is a man who walked and talked with God from his childhood. He had known the power and blessing of God in his life in an extraordinary way. But for 12 months he had fought the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

He was not experiencing God's presence as he had before. So now he writes Psalm 32 after he is confronted by the prophet. Oh what joy, he writes, for those whose rebellion is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight. Yes, what joy for those who record the Lord has cleared them of sin, whose lives are lived in complete honesty. When I refused to confess my sin, I was weak and miserable and I groaned all day long. For day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me and my strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. And then you might have the word cela or the word interlude in your Bible depending on what translation you have.

I'll comment on that in a moment. David continues, finally I confess my sins to you and I stopped trying to hide them. I said to myself, I will confess my rebellion to the Lord and you forgive me. All my guilt is gone.

Stop there. So David says that his strength evaporated like water in the summer heat, cela or interlude. What that means is many of these psalms were songs and so there would be a musical break.

They would sing certain lyrics and then there would be a break. And the idea of the interlude or cela was to pause and think about it. So we just said these things and I want you to think about what we have said. So David is basically saying, hey man, when I had not confessed my sin, I was miserable. Think about that.

Think about how hard that is. Now bringing me to point number seven, God disciplines those that he loves. The reason this discipline came into the life of David was because he was a child of God. A disobedient one, for sure.

A wayward one, no question about it. But he was still God's child. And as Hebrews 12 says, if God doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children, it means you are illegitimate and you're really not his children after all. Listen, if you cross a line, if you sin against God and you feel guilt, praise God. Your conscience is working.

You want your conscience to work. We used to have a smoke alarm that was hypersensitive. I mean Kathy would cook an egg, smoke alarm's going off. Nothing's happening, fire engine's showing up. Not really, but you know, it was a hypersensitive smoke alarm.

I had to disable it and replace it. Sometimes you can have a hypersensitive conscience. The Bible says if your heart condemns you, God is greater than your heart. One of the problems is that we can have a conscience that works and we confess our sin to God, but after we've confessed it, we still feel guilty.

And that's not right. Once God has forgiven you, you need to accept his forgiveness. David was able to do that.

Can you do that? See, when Jesus died on the cross, he paid for all of your sin. And once you've confessed your sin, as the Bible tells you to, you're forgiven of your sin. 1 John 1.8, if we will confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Not some unrighteousness, all unrighteousness. So if God has forgiven your sin and if God has forgotten your sin, why are you dragging it up still? We should not choose to remember what God has chosen to forget. Our God is a big eraser. He's forgiven it, he's forgotten it. No, when the Bible says God forgets a sin, it doesn't mean like he's having a lapse of memory. Well, where'd that sin go? Where are my car keys?

Where did I park the car? No, it's not like that. He's saying I choose to not remember that sin. I choose to not hold that sin against you any longer. As far as the east is from the west is as far as I have put your sin from you. So accept that forgiveness.

So David's conscience is working and he's coming under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Good, that's what happens when you're a child of God. If your child misbehaves, you discipline your child because they're your child. See, the problem we have today with a whole generation of kids is parents are not raising them and they're not disciplining them. They're allowing them to do whatever they want and this is really negligence on the part of the parent. If you love your child, you tell them no. If you love your child, you give them boundaries.

If you love your child, you raise them in the right way and that's an indication you're a good parent and God is more than a good parent. He's the greatest parent and it was David himself who wrote in Psalm 23, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Isn't that interesting? A rod comforts you, yea. It reminds you you're God's child. David being the shepherd had two primary tools he used with the sheep and with their enemies. The staff, the long crooked pole, he would use to pull a wayward sheep back in the line and a rod. He would use to drive away a predator, even kill a predator, and also occasionally use on a sheep, not quite in the same way but give them a little whack to keep them in line, especially if that sheep was going astray and leading others astray. The way I look at it, better to have a broken leg than be leg of lamb, okay? So sometimes in our life we're going astray.

God uses the staff. Now come on, don't do that. We go astray, don't do that. Don't do that. And then he pulls out, don't make me use this. You keep going astray. He loves you. Stop it.

Pay attention to me. And that's what was happening to David right now. So David had covered up his sin or so he thought, but the Bible says in Proverbs 28, 13, he that covers his sin will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.

So now pretty much a year has passed. David's sitting on his throne and the Lord sends Nathan the prophet, 2 Samuel 12, one. Then the Lord sent Nathan to David. When did the Lord send Nathan the prophet to David? Right after his sin with Bathsheba? No. Right after Bathsheba found out she was pregnant? Again, no. Right after David had Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, killed?

No. After a year had effectively passed and David could hardly live with himself, Nathan comes in to the palace of David. King, I have a situation I want to run by you. I want to get your input. Yes, David says, sitting on his regal throne.

Okay, so there's this guy. And they're not very wealthy. They have one little lamb. In fact, the lamb is like a family pet.

It eats at the table with them. They push the lamb around in a stroller. Not really, but it's like that idea of, you know, the lamb is like a member of his family. He loves the little lamb. Anyway, this guy has a neighbor who has many sheep and the neighbor had a friend come from out of town for dinner and he decided he wanted to serve him a leg of lamb. And so instead of killing one of his many sheep, he goes to this neighbor who has one little baby lamb that's like a member of his family and he kills the baby lamb and serves it to the visitor.

What should be done to a man that would do that? David grabbed the arms of his throne. His blood began to boil. He was seen red and he says, this man should restore four times what he has taken and then he should be put to death. Wait, put to death?

Restoring fourfold, yeah, that makes sense. But put him to death and then Nathan points his long, bony prophet finger in David's face and says, you the man. You are the man. Get it? Oh yeah. I'm like that guy that has all these wives and I went to Uriah the Hittite and I took his only wife. That's me.

You're the man. So judgment came upon David because of his sin and truly he did face the repercussions of it for the rest of his life. But in David's defense, he repented.

That's point number eight. There's one correct response to being caught in sin and that correct response is saying, I have sinned. Second Samuel 12, 13, David said to Nathan, I've sinned against the Lord. I've sinned. Now this is in contrast to King Saul. When the prophet Samuel went to King Saul and confronted him over his sin, he made excuses. It's not my fault.

You don't understand. He began to shift the blame everywhere he could. If you want to be free from sin, you have to admit you're dealing with sin. Stop blaming everybody else. Take responsibility. I have sinned.

I am wrong. I have done this. In Psalm 51, which he also wrote in the aftermath of being confronted by the prophet Nathan, David wrote, against thee and thee only have I committed this sin.

That's so important. He owned what he had done and he did repent. This is why. This is why he was a man after God's own heart. Not because he was a perfect man. Not because he was a flawless man. But because he was a man that ultimately knew where to turn when he was going the wrong direction in life. And this is a great thing that he did.

Now, number nine. Despite his sin, David was given a second chance in life. Despite his sin. He was given a second chance. That's why I call this message the God of the Second Chance. God gives second chances.

And third chances and fourth chances. And David saw that. Did you know that this story actually connects to the Christmas story? How? Well, where was Jesus born? Does anyone know?

Good answer. Bethlehem. Why was Jesus born in Bethlehem? Because he was connected to the family of David. His bloodline traced back to David through both Mary and Joseph. That's when the decree was given by Caesar that everyone should be taxed and go to their hometown. They went to Bethlehem.

So here's the amazing thing. When you look at the bloodline of Jesus or the family tree of Jesus, there's some pretty unsavory characters that made their way in it. Including Bathsheba. She is in the messianic line.

If that isn't a second chance, I don't know what is. Also, Rahab and Tamar, two other immoral women, made it into the family tree of Jesus. Now, you know, people love to go back and trace their family roots because we all hope we're related to some famous historical figure or a royal person or someone significant. Then we find out we have creeps in our family tree, right? Hey, how about the family tree of Jesus? But here's the message of it all. God gave second chances to David and to Bathsheba and to these other women that are mentioned and God gives second chances to us as well.

This was David's secret as he always knew where to turn. Do you? Now, maybe I'm talking to someone in closing who has sinned against God and in fact, you don't even know why you're here at church. You're thinking, I don't think I should be here.

I'm such a hypocrite. Hey, I'm so glad you're here because as I often said, the church is not a museum for saints. It's a hospital for sinners. This is a place to get right with God, right? So this is a place to recommit your life to the Lord.

I wanna just tell you something. If you are a true child of God, you will never be happy living in sin. You're always gonna know what's true.

You're always gonna know what's right. You may do everything you can to try to fit in with the crowd but deep down inside, you know where you belong. You belong with God's people as a part of the family of God in the church, worshiping the Lord.

This is your home, not this culture outside. And if your conscience is working, thank God for that. God does not convict you of your sin to drive you away in despair or to condemn you. He convicts you of your sin so you will come to your senses and turn to Him.

That's the whole point of it and that's what David did and that's what we need to do. Or maybe I'm talking to someone here who has never asked Jesus Christ to come into their life. Of course, the very mission of Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem, then to live a perfect life and then to die a perfect death. He came to die for the sin of the world. He came to die for your sin of mine and if I'll turn from my sin and put my faith in Him, He will forgive me.

Do you need a second chance or a third chance or a fourth chance? I'm talking to somebody that's been plotting some sinful course. Consider this your wake up call from the Lord today. He's saying don't do that because I love you and I don't want you to ruin your life. But let's just say you've done it. Stop doing that and repent as Jesus said to the woman caught in the act of adultery.

Repent and sin no more. It reminds me of a guy who got a job to paint a church and they said yeah, paint the whole church and we'll pay you this much money. So the guy sized it up and thought well I was gonna have to buy this many cans of paint and you know I think I could actually make a little more profit if I thinned the paint out and didn't use all that paint but actually put some thinner in it. So he got his cans of paint and he got some thinner and was really putting a very thin coat of paint on the church and was almost done.

He was at the very steeple putting the last strokes on and a bolt of lightning struck him in his scaffolding and he's hanging by one arm and God spoke to him from heaven and said repaint and thin no more. Is that funny? Not that funny.

How many of you have heard that joke before? Oh good. Anyway.

But that's the message. Repent and sin no more. God will forgive you but you must ask for his forgiveness. We're gonna pray now and I'm gonna give you an opportunity to get right with God. Let's all pray. Thank you for your love for us. Thank you that you never give up on us. Thank you that even when we go astray like wayward sheep you use your staff and when necessary you use your rod to comfort us to reassure us that we're loved by you and I pray for any person here any person watching and listening wherever they are if they need to get right with you now let them do it we pray. Now while our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed while we're praying if you've never asked Jesus to come into your life or if you know the Lord but you're living a double life and doing things you shouldn't be doing and you need to get right with God why don't you get right with him right now and pray this prayer after me you could pray it out loud if you like or you can pray it quietly but pray this if you need to today after me Lord Jesus I know that I've sinned against you I'm sorry for that sin I repent of that sin I turn from this sin and I receive your forgiveness that you purchased for me at the cross of Calvary where you shed your blood and died in my place Lord thank you for your forgiveness refresh me with your presence and I choose to follow you from this moment forward thank you for hearing this prayer and answering this prayer in Jesus name I pray Amen Hey everybody thanks for listening to this podcast to learn more about Harvest Ministries follow this show and consider supporting it just go to Harvest.org and to find out how to know God personally go to Harvest.org and click on Know God